Why did a stalemate develop on the Western Front during World War One?

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Coursework Assignment 1 The First World War b) Why did a stalemate develop on the Western Front? A stalemate developed on the Western Front for four main reasons, one being that the Schlieffen plan failed, another reason was that the French were unable to defeat the Germans completely at the Battle of the Marne, another reasons was the "race to the Channel" and the last reason was that defending positions was far easier than attacking. The Schlieffen Plan failed for a number of reasons, one being that Moltke, the German commander, had altered the balance of the forces so that the right wing had only three times as many troops as the left wing and since the right wing was smaller it advanced more slowly than had been planned. ...read more.

Middle

Blocking their way, however, assembled by the River Marne were the British and French troops. The reasons why the French were unable to defeat the Germans completely at the Battle of the Marne were numerous; one of the reasons was that no matter how ill spirited the German armies were, they were still large and well prepared. The French and British troops however had almost been "thrown" together and in comparison to the vast amounts of German soldiers, the British and French had an exceedingly small army. The German armies also had far more munitions than the British and French. Joffre did however manage to form troops from the east to Paris, yet they were weak and tired and so did not really help a considerable amount. ...read more.

Conclusion

When attacking you had to leave the safety, protection and concealment of the trenches, you were out in the open and comparatively defenceless as all that faced you was "no-man's-land" and you knew that beyond there was hundreds of opposing troops ready to blow you down with their machine guns, and so attacking became suicidal. Staying in your trench was by far the better option; you were hidden and highly armed. Communications were high and so trenches were supplied adequately and defence was mechanised, reinforcements and food could arrive by rail at anytime. So, due to all these reasons, and in particular the last one, a strong, fortified stalemate developed on the Western Front, and seemingly nothing could break it. Emilie Murphy 10F May 5th 2002 ...read more.

Related GCSE International relations 1900-1939 essays

I was instructed to do sentry duty, Tom who was also in the same trench as me was cleaning the weapons. That night, some of our troops were sleeping; I still had to fulfil my task. You could still hear the deafening sound of shells.

The Americans joined the war on the 6th of April 1917, due to German unrestricted submarine warfare and Germany's persuading Mexico to attack them. President Woodrow Wilson had repeatedly warned Germany that they would not tolerate the sinking of vessels containing U.S.

Another problem that had sprung up within the German force was that their advance had been so fast that their food and ammunition couldn't keep up. The German soldiers were unfed and really exhausted. The German commander, Von Kluck couldn't go round Paris as it was planned because the further

They were planning to build a hole just near by and they would hide there. Then they slept there till the morning and they listened to our tactics. Then they would set back to their trench whilst we were cleaning equipment and things like that.

But the new technology made it easy to defend the trenches and hard to lose the war, but this made it even harder to advance forward and try to win the war. The Schlieffen Plan was the Germans plan. Schlieffen, Chief of the German General Staff, created it in 1905.

There was also the Blockading of German ports; this broke stalemate because Germany had now lost: 300,000 civilians; a 1/3 of their pigs, and caused rations to be reduced extremely. Therefore the general population of Germany no longer supported the war; not only this but the German army was slowly

Explain the part played by the land fronts other than the Western Front in the victory in World War I The Eastern front played a large part in aiding the Allied victory in World War I. The Schlieffen Plan relied on Russia mobilising slowly, however, Russia mobilised more quickly than

there were strikes and demonstrations in the northern cities as many civilians demanded an end to the war. The situation looked dire for Germany, if it could not control its own people, their great nation would be destroyed from the inside out.